“Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control and it didn't have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realised that you either became a power or you were crushed” Joe Strummer

Using AR for Learning

I have been “playing around” with Augmented Reality for some time now – many thanks to the great Chris Mason (@57mason) for helping me iron out a few glitches and make my laugh along the way!

Why have I been doing this? Well, I am currently working with a Science department in a school in Bradford who have been in a very fortunate position of acquiring 20 iPod Touches – they arrive next week, so I have been coming up with as many learning activities as I can that they could use with them. Apps, videos, blogging, QR codes and podcasts will be used, but I wanted to come up with something a bit tasty!

I have “layered” Science videos on to images and words on the sheets – hopefully by accessing the QR codes it should link you to the “anywhere” that I have set up – give them a go – what do you think?

The display sheets above will hopefully be used as the beginning of an interactive display for the department – please feel free to try them out and please, please comment and give me feedback on if it works, how it can be improved etc – this is work in progress.

I am now working on using self made videos to share – i.e. above a student’s piece of work could be a QR code linking to a video of them explaining about their learning – pretty powerful I’m sure you’ll agree, great for Parents’ Evenings and Open Days.

The Aurasma App is free and I’ve been using my iPhone 3GS to make all my “anywheres” even though it is recommended that an iPhone 4 is used (or Ipad2) – there are a few issues at the moment, but it may due to the device I’m using, I may need to upgrade!!

A few pointers that I have concluded from my experiences (please bear in mind that this is from my personal experience with a 3GS – it may be different/better with a 4)

Use the red, amber, green thermometer when you are capturing your image to ensure you have a good pic.

For some reason words and simple images work better than “busy” images.

Remember to move the tab on to “anywhere” a sort of pylon icon rather than the globe icon of a “happening” when you are sharing.

You can share your anywhere with other people by text, twitter and eMail.

Your “channel” will need to be unlocked to share – look out for padlock icon.

The library of videos (Blinkx) can be a little limited at times……and very American!

You can upload your own videos from your phone but so far I am struggling to use a video that is longer than a minute – it doesn’t allow me to share that with others (this may however be due to my phone and not the software)*

REMEMBER TO TURN YOUR LOCATION SETTINGS OFF FOR AURASMA WHEN YOU ARE NOT USING IT AS IT EATS UP YOUR BATTERY LIKE A HUNGRY FARMER!!

Please also remember, that this is a Lite App – with more updates and improvements this could be amazing!!

Hope you find the sheets useful, let me know how you got on using them – all advice and feedback is welcome!